After waiting for a physical edition I jumped onto this game after it had already won game of the year 2023. I started a character, was baffled by the amount of genital options, and started my first play through. I’m not sure if it was because my setup was so bad, or maybe because I wasn’t in the right mindset but I bounced off it after 6/8 hours. I put it away and vowed to try it again at some point.
Fast forward to February 2025 almost 9 months after first attempting it, I started a new character and dived back in with fresh eyes and let me tell you, this game deserved game of the year and every other award it got. I played between 60-80 hours, hard to specify because I had to keep loading previous saves that were an hour or so earlier because I decided I’d go in on tactician difficulty, not a good idea. I did drop the difficulty on the massive end of act 2 boss fight because it was just too difficult for me having not prepared at all. That being said the whole game was fun even with the replays.
The story is sublime, with several different endings as well as complete freedom to change it however you want. I loved the companions I chose and all of them are very well voice acted, you can really feel the emotion in Karlach’s story and the charisma from one of my new favourite voice actors in Neil Newbon or Astarion in game.
JK Simmons as one of the bosses in game is great as well as Jason Isaac and Maggie Robertson, they all did a great job along with the character designers to make you detest them and want nothing more than their virtual deaths.
This game has an insane amount of detail in the world from random side quests to stumbling upon huge quest lines that end with fighting a huge iron golem of death far too early in your game. I love the idea of having a world that changes while you’re playing and this game excels at making you feel like you’re making a different to your environment and the npc population within the game.
The turn based combat is very well done and is in tune with the DnD theme of the game. Keeping most of the dice rolls in the background is great because it helps to keep the pace of video game combat going. Dice rolls are however used for lock picking, persuasion and other skill checks and other non combat situations which greatly helps tie back to the best and most fun parts of DnD. In my opinion there’s not much better than walking into a huge camp of goblins and rolling a natural 20 while convincing them your the new messiah and having them all allowed you to do and take whatever you please, then you can kill them all afterwards while your 10 levels over there’s to fulfill your characters murderous ideals.
When it comes to the RPG aspect there’s nothing better than DnD and this game does an incredible job of showing that. The only thing I’d change is increasing the level cap from 12 to 15 because I maxed out 1/3 of the way into act 3 and actually skipped some side stuff because I felt like i wasn’t gaining much other than story and finishing quest lines. This however does leave me with some more options as I go onto my 2nd play-through that I have started immediately after finishing this one.
I’ll be playing this time as the dark urge which adds different interactions, a new companion that is used as one of the mini bosses previously and an almost completely different act 3 as you can become the slayer of Baldurs gate which leads to different endings and in some cases having to fight your own companions that are more light sided. I’ll be attempting tactician mode now I know what to expect and can plan for some of the more insane boss fights.
Overall there’s no way I can give this anything less that 10/10, Real Fuckin’ Tasty. It’s been my favourite game since probably the Witcher 3 from 10 years ago. Nothing else to say other than I’d urge anyone that likes RPG games to give this a go.
Revieded by MoonHead
Released on Sony Playstation 5 6th September 2023.
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